Information & Digital Literacy

Free, self-paced learning tools — use them online, or take them and make them yours

Two interactive suites for teaching the research, citation, and digital-citizenship skills students need — built by a librarian, working with AI, for an international school, and now shared for any teacher or librarian to use. They run in any browser with no login. And because they’re just self-contained web files, you can download any module and remix it with an AI assistant — change the examples, the reading level, the citation style, whatever fits your students.

For older students · IB DP & CP · grades 11–12

Research Toolkit

A suite for students taking on a major independent research project — Extended Essays and Reflective Projects — covering the whole arc from shaping a question to citing sources with integrity, including how to use AI research tools ethically.

It began, more or less, with a single request to Claude:

The starting prompt (reconstructed)I’m a librarian at an international school — an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School — and I want to create a series of interactive, web-based learning modules to teach our Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme students (11th and 12th graders) research and digital-literacy skills. They’re preparing for major research projects: the DP students are writing Extended Essays, and the CP students are working on Reflective Projects. The key skills they need: telling reliable sources from unreliable ones, evaluating and using AI tools ethically, formatting citations properly (MLA and APA), and understanding academic integrity. The modules should be self-paced and help students work through problems independently. English is the students’ second language. Can you help me design and build this toolkit?
Research Foundations
Exploring a topic, shaping a focused research question, and building search strategies with keywords and Boolean operators (AND / OR / NOT).
Sources, Evaluation & AI Tools
Navigating databases, judging whether a source is reliable, and using AI research tools effectively and ethically — including what AI can and can’t be trusted to do.
Academic Integrity & Citations
Why citations matter, paraphrasing vs. quoting, and formatting references in an MLA or APA track — plus how to cite AI-generated content.
Physics Research Skills
A targeted add-on (aimed at grades 9–10) covering five common trouble spots in physics research methodology.
For younger students · IB MYP · grades 7–10

Digital Skills

A set of short, gamified challenges — warm-up to advanced, with instant feedback — for students preparing for the Personal Project and learning to navigate the digital world: evaluating sources, citing honestly, and being a good digital citizen.

It started much the same way:

The starting prompt (reconstructed)I’m a librarian at an international school — an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School — and I want to create a series of interactive, web-based learning modules to teach our Middle Years Programme students (7th to 10th graders) research and digital-literacy skills. They’re preparing for the Personal Project, a major piece of independent research. The key skills: telling reliable sources from unreliable ones, evaluating and using AI tools ethically, formatting citations (MLA and APA), understanding academic integrity, and learning how to be a good citizen in a digital world. The modules should be self-paced and help students work through problems on their own. English is the students’ second language. Can you help me design and build this series of modules?
Research & source evaluation
Spot the Fake
Evaluating sources: author credentials, bias, and what a web domain tells you.
Search Like a Pro
Boolean operators (AND / OR / NOT) and advanced search filters.
Source Detective
Telling primary sources apart from secondary ones.
Citations & academic writing
Paraphrase Master
Avoiding plagiarism by rewriting ideas in your own words.
Citation Builder
Building MLA citations for books, articles, websites, social media, and AI.
Synthesis Challenge
Combining several sources into your own original analysis.
Digital citizenship
Privacy Guardian
Strong passwords, privacy settings, and recognizing scams.
Digital Footprint
Managing your online presence and reputation.
Fake News Fighter
Fact-checking, spotting manipulation, and lateral reading.

Take them, change them, make them yours

These are offered in the spirit of open educational resources. Download a single module or a whole toolkit, open it in your own AI assistant, and adapt it: swap in examples from your curriculum, adjust the language for your students, point it at your own library’s databases. You don’t need to be technical — describe the change you want and let the AI do the editing. (Each module loads React and Tailwind from public CDNs, so a downloaded copy needs an internet connection to run; everything else is self-contained.)

One honest note, the same one that applies to anything AI helps make: read through a module before you put it in front of students, especially the examples and the feedback, so it fits your context and you stand behind what it teaches.

New to this? The guide Take a Module and Make It Yours walks you through the whole thing — downloading a module, changing it with an AI assistant, and putting your own version online for students — step by step, no coding.

See how tools like these get built — with AI, by a non-programmer